Shield
by Mad Server
Summary: Post-apocalypse Dean has a migraine.  Post-apocalypse Sam takes care of him.  Written for a prompt on LJ.


_A/N: Oh hoodie time, how I love your comment fic memes._

* * *

Sam finds Dean on a wrecked football field, face down in the AstroTurf. There are huge rips in the green, and the concrete bleachers at the far end have collapsed.

Sam yells his name and sprints forward. Dean coughs and rolls over.

"Hey, hey, hey." Sam tumbles to Dean's side, pats his cold cheek. Dean's eyes crack open and he turns and hacks into the ground. "Dean."

"Sam?"

"Yeah." Sam smoothes his hands over Dean's cool face. He can't stop touching him. "Yeah."

* * *

Sam doesn't like it here. They get in a car and Sam hot wires it and they drive around fallen buildings and downed trees until the highway crumbles at a river's edge. Silvery waves skitter around pieces of bridge.

Dean looks pale and sick in the passenger seat. "Think that was you or me?"

Sam chokes on a crazy laugh.

Hunching forward, Dean blows his nose in his shirt. "I'm not building a raft tonight."

"No."

There's a big Victorian house set back from the road. It's the only one still standing along this stretch. Nobody's home.

"Sleep," Sam says, bundling Dean into the four-poster bed. He thinks about getting a drink of water, but lies down next to his brother instead and tugs him tight against his chest. Dean snuffles and grunts, his forehead bunching irritably. Then he sighs against Sam's neck and pushes closer.

* * *

In the morning Dean's curled up on the far side of the bed with a pillow pressed over his head.

Sam pads downstairs and makes them coffee, then carries it back up and sets Dean's on the bedside table. He sits in the armchair and sips his own and wonders how much coffee is left in the world.

He finishes his second cup and Dean still hasn't moved, just lies huddled up in his torn jeans and dirty boots. Sam clears his throat. "Hey."

Dean twitches but stays still.

"Morning."

This time Dean strengthens his hold on the pillow and drags his knees up a fraction.

"You can sleep all you want, man, but first I gotta see you're OK."

A shiver runs through Dean and he flaps a listless hand at Sam.

Sam frowns and settles on the edge of the bed. "Uh. This'll just take a second." He tugs at the pillow and Dean clings to it weakly. A strangled sound emerges. "What the hell, Dean?" Sam frees the cushion and sets it on the top of its mate.

Dean's flushed in the daylight, hair mashed against his head, eyes miserable slits. "Goddamnit, Sam," he whispers.

"Fuck. What... Are you OK?"

Dean lifts shaky hands to his ears and presses against them. "Shhh."

Sam's palms explore Dean's brow and then the glands in his neck. "You got a headache? Shit, you're pretty warm."

Dean releases one ear to drop his forearm over his eyes. "Mmm." He sniffles. "Sam," he breathes, "I love you but for fuck's sake stop talking." A car trundles by outside and he wraps his arms around his head.

"Sorry," Sam whispers, shielding Dean's eyes with his own hand while he looks for something to drape over the curtain rods. "Sorry." He spots the heavy Oriental rug, gets up and wrestles it over the giant window. The room is instantly darker. "That better?" he hisses.

"Ngghh."

Sam ekes just enough cold water out of the tap to wet a face cloth. "Here." He carefully drapes the rag over Dean's eyes and molds it down into the hollows. Dean flinches, but then as Sam watches his legs straighten out by degrees, hands relaxing their guard over his ears.

"Kinda hot in here," Sam murmurs, and he hunts down a fan and sets it up in the far corner of the room. He hears the same car tear back up the street and sighs as Dean clenches up.

Sam takes their stolen Nissan half a mile up the road and parks it crosswise so nobody else can get by. Walking back along the warm, sunny highway, he listens to the wind shushing through the trees and flapping up house wreckage and tries not to think about who might have lived here.

He's taking care of Dean. It's one good thing he can do.

* * *

end

Prompt: _Gen/AU in which Sam and Dean still play the roles of Michael and Lucifer: The apocalypse comes and two brothers face off while two other brothers sleep away inside of them. In the wreckage that's left at the end of the world, Sam and Dean take refuge in an abandoned Victorian home, the kind with huge, tall windows that admit lots of light. There are no curtains and it's a cheerful, sunny, and warm place. Unfortunately, Dean's been plagued with migraines since he and Sam woke in the wreckage screaming for each other. Sam must keep him cool, must keep it quiet, and must keep it dark – a challenge with the sunny day, the warm temperatures, and the general cacophony of the world dying or coming back to life._

_**Big, fat bonus points and adoration if you can somehow work in Sam with his hand over Dean's eyes as a means to keep the sun/glare/light away._


End file.
